


You always look at me with those eyes

by Ellesra



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Mentions of Blood, Time travel through visions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:15:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21866113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellesra/pseuds/Ellesra
Summary: Jester dreams, and in them, he always knows her.
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 4
Kudos: 70





	You always look at me with those eyes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [iceplanet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iceplanet/gifts).

Everything is a haze of pain. There are teeth penetrating her body, long fangs dripping with saliva and blood. Her blood. The creature’s blood. The latter burns, every time a bit of it comes in contact with her body. It’s all terribly hot, and Jester’s afraid that she’s actually going to burn alive.

In the corner of her eye, she sees movement. 

_ Help _ \- she manages to think, before her body  _ explodes _ -

And then she gets dropped. Because her body, small and trapped as it once was, is now a giant, hairy thing. She swings her head, and her tusks swing with her. The sounds she makes are trumpets of war, and she directs that war towards the creature that hurt her. She charges into it, gores it, tramples it. It is not long before the body is at her feet, and she charges the second beast, fully confident in her large body’s ability to destroy anything in its path.

The other creature goes down easy. She plays around a bit, mostly protected from the sharp sting of the blood by her furry coat. Her trunk points towards the sky, and she lets out a triumphant blow of air that resonates in the clearing, and in the mountains surrounding the valley.

She staggers forward, and she is a tiefling once more. Her wounds are gone, the pain is nowhere to be found. 

Turning, she sees a shape, sitting against one of the trees. A person, a human, looking directly at her. Even from this distance, she can see his brow, furrowed, and his lips, pulling slightly upwards.

Jester takes a step towards him-

For a second, she does not know where she is. The darkness seems total, her heart is thumping wildly in her chest, and then her eyes adjust. A painted ceiling, curtains falling elegantly to frame the bed. Jester glances to the side, and the glow of the Traveler’s green eyes meets her gaze.

“Did you dream?” he speaks softly, and Jester smiles as she curls against him.

“Yeah. It was really strange!” she whispers back, a bit louder than him. Mama won’t be back tonight, she remembers. There is no real reason to whisper.

It does feel like the silence is too heavy to be lifted, though.

The Traveler waits, and Jester easily takes the hint to keep talking.

“There was a big monster, and then an even bigger monster. And I got turned into a large furry creature! And it was just so cool, you know? I had laaaarge tusks, and I killed the monsters!” she explains, grinning more as she explains the feeling. “I felt really powerful, because I was so large and the monsters didn’t manage to harm me!”

She takes a break, trying to remember all the details. The feeling of being the large furry creature really sticks with her. It’s like, if she just reached a bit, she could turn into one again. Large cloves and giant tusks…

“And then, I turned back to myself. And there was someone else there. A boy… Or a man?”

The Traveler hums, the sound vibrating a bit through her chest like it’s an instrument, resonating.

Thinking about it for another little while, Jester decides to postpone sleep for just a bit longer. She lights a candle, and takes out her sketchbook.

“I’ll show you how he looked. And the monsters! I need to sketch them too…” and she trails off, the sound of her voice being replaced with the skritch of her coal against rough paper.

It takes her many pages to realize it’s already gotten light. Her eyes feel strained, from having concentrated on the paper for so long. The pages are littered with sketches of various quality. She still feels the weight of the Traveler against her shoulder. Looking at him, she sees him staring at the pages, eyes not moving, nor blinking.

“Are you tired too, Traveler?” she asks, stifling a yawn.

It seems to break him out of whatever thoughts he was having.

“I do believe it’s time for some sleep, yes,” he mutters. There is a bit of a sleepy drag to his voice. Jester’s quite sure she can hear it. She has never been able to catch him sleeping, however.

“Alright! I think I’ve captured the dream well enough, anyway,” she says, and lays the book back on the floor. She blows out the light, where only a stub is left of what was almost an entire candle.

Sleep comes quickly, and this time there is no dream to greet her on the other side.

\---

For some reason, she keeps drawing this guy she saw in that one dream. The Traveler teases her about it, but Jester just puts out her tongue at him.

She draws the man as she saw him, sitting against the tree, weary smile turned towards her. In other drawings, he’s shabby and dirty, and yet still ruggedly handsome. Sometimes she uses her brightest inks in yellow and red to make fire coming out from his hands. In others, he’s just petting a cat or an octopus or a bird.

Mama notices, because she always does. So the Traveler isn’t the only one teasing her.

“Do you have a crush, Sapphire?” she asks, and there is laughter in her voice. Jester huffs.

“It’s not a crush, mama!” she defends herself, as she tries to put her body between her mama and her current drawing of the man. He is holding a tankard of ale, in this one, glancing over at her with a gentle expression.

There is a chuckle from behind her, and she hears soft footsteps on the carpeted floor. “Well, he sure is handsome,” mama says, just as she is leaving the room. Jester sighs. Yeah. He is, isn’t he?

That night, she sees him again.

“You’re sweet on him, yeah?”

She hears his voice for the first time, and it’s smooth and dark, not unlike how she imagined it to be. The question confuses her, but she answers anyway.

“I don’t know,” she says. He nods his head, and there’s that same strange smile on his face. The one she’s been drawing him with the most. “It feels funny,” she keeps talking, though the words don’t feel quite right. 

“How do you mean?”

“Well. You know, when you really like somebody, but then you start to know them, and you go ‘Do I like them or-” Jester stops, the sentence choking her. These are not her words. She’s not the one saying this. She doesn’t even know what they’re talking about. There are things she wants to say, wants to do, wants to know, and the words aren’t coming out right. It’s like she’s not in control of her own body, and a blanket of fear spreads across her brain as the thought takes form.

“Jester? Are you alright?” His voice cuts through her panic. Suddenly, she can breathe again; she looks at him, and he’s looking at her with those kind eyes, having that same furrowed brow. He’s dirty and there’s a clear crust of salt on his worn clothes, and he’s not the same as when she first saw him. But he’s looking at  _ her _ . He’s saying  _ her _ name.

“I- yeah. I’m- Just feeling a bit out of it, you know?”

“You do not have to make a decision about Fjord, you know. It’s okay if you like him. It’s also fine if you don’t, ja?”

Jester is still thrown. 

“Fjord,” she repeats. The name feels familiar on her lips, like she’s said it many times before.

The man looks confused as well, now.

“That is who we were talking about, I thought. Were you thinking about someone else?”

Jester rests her gaze on him for a long time. There are sentences in her head, fighting for a place on her lips. None of them are hers. They want to know about his girlfriend. They want to say that he’s mysterious. They want to say what she stopped herself from saying.

“Maybe,” she admits, and looks around the room, for the first time. It is empty, stools and tables scattered around it. Though the place looks different from the Lavish Chateau, Jester thinks this is probably a tavern. It doesn’t feel like it should be empty. 

“What’s your name?” she asks, as the silence stretches beyond the point of what’s comfortable. Looking back to the man, she only just sees the moment when his face completely changes. From worried and fond, his expression becomes a blank mask. For the first time since she saw him, a gust of fear strikes her stomach. Her mind goes to the vivid fire she’d drawn in his hand, the way the firelight would put shade on his expressionless features. It’s the same look on his face now.

“You know my name, Jester,” he responds, and the suspicion is so clear in his gaze.

“I know, I just… Want to hear you say it. The way you always say it, yeah?”

His brow is furrowed again. He opens his mouth to say something.

There is a slight bit of light coming in through her window. Jester knows where she is, this time, yet the dream is clear as crystal in her mind. She hastily throws herself around, grasping for her sketchbook. Every little detail, she writes down in it.

The sentences are still running through her head, out of order, but clear as if she just had spoken them.

_ Well. You know, when you really like somebody, but then you start to know them, and you go, "Do I like them or do I like what I thought they were?" and then you don't know? _

Her mama finds her like that, hours later.

“Sapphire…” she trails off. It’s only the worry in her voice that makes Jester look up. “Have you been up all night?”

Jester shakes her head, and finishes detailing the specific holes of his scarf. Mama looks at the drawing. Jester can see her frown in the corner of her eye.

“Are you meeting this man, honey?” she asks, and there is something there that Jester can’t identify.

Looking up at her mama, shows her the same expression that mama sometimes has when Jester’s talking about the Traveler.

“I haven’t met him yet. Not properly, anyway,” she says, and raises a hand to rub at her eyes. Wow, she’s tired! It’s actually kind of hard to focus on the page she’s drawing on.

“Is this another traveler?” mama asks.

“Mama, it’s  _ The _ Traveler. And this is someone else! I’ve already shown you drawings of the Traveler, you know,” Jester berates her, then squeezes her eyes shut to see if that helps with the blurriness.

“I think you should sleep for a bit, Little Sapphire.” Jester feels the slight pull of her sketchbook. She lets it slip through her hands, because she secretly agrees.

“Okay. But remember that we were going shopping today, okay?” she orders, and mama smiles gently at her.

“Of course.”

\---

The Traveler is staring at her. He does it quite often, and Jester is definitely used to it, but the look is somehow more intense than usual.

“Are you falling for me?” she jokes, meeting his gaze with hers. A smile tilts his lips, and he chuckles.

“It’s impossible not to be in love with you, Sapphire,” he mutters back to her. It makes her giggle, and she only responds with a happy little wiggle.

Silence falls again, but he’s still staring at her.

After a while, she looks back up from her sketchbook.

“What is it about that man that pulls you?” he asks, just as she’s about to ask him what’s  _ really _ up.

Jester shrugs, tilting her head a bit back and forth.

“Well, I mean, he’s handsome, right? And it’s super romantic, don’t you think?” she trills, and grins at him. The Traveler is looking at her with the expression that always means that he knows what she  _ really _ means. Jester huffs.

“It’s just… It’s nice. When he talks to me. And he sees me, and knows me really well. And I just… I like that,” she says. Squinting down, she feels tears start welling up. Why is she even crying?

“It would be nice to have a proper conversation with him, though. And to know his name! And…” She trails off.  _ To know he’s real. That would be  _ really  _ nice. _

“I am sure you’ll meet him someday,” the Traveller says, and comes to give her a hug. It’s always good to feel his warmth against her. Despite what she tells her mama, sometimes there’s just this little doubt. About whether he’s real, or not.

“Now, you did say you were going to show me something spectacular today,” the Traveler reminds her. A smile splits her face. She straightens up, and lets go of him.

“Oh yes! Trust me, you’re going to  _ love  _ this.”

\---

The prank goes spectacularly. Of course, the repercussions were not ones that Jester had thought to foresee.

“I… Have to leave,” Jester repeats, as she stares back into mama’s sad gaze. 

“I’m so, so sorry Jester. I did all that I could, but I’m afraid they might come and hurt you, if you stay. I wish…” she trails off, and Jester can see tears start to gather in her eyes.

“No mama, it’s okay! This will be great, I’ll get to see the world! And I could go find dad, and don’t you think he’ll be super happy to see me?” She pulls up one of her wide smiles, and mama brings up a handkerchief in order to dab at her eyes. Jester leans forwards, and knocks her forehead gently into mama’s.

“And maybe this is when I’ll meet that guy as well! And you know I won’t be alone, because the Traveler is always with me,” she keeps enthusing, putting as much energy as she can into convincing her mother. It’s going to be alright! It really is.

It takes only a day before Jester’s ready to leave. Her pouch is full of coins, and she’s got her sickle on her hip, as well as her shield. She makes sure to kiss mama’s face until she’s giggling, and cheerfully waves goodbye.

She buys a horse in the outskirts of Nicodranas, and dresses it up in the nicest clothes she can find for it. Her coin pouch feels considerably less heavy, but the horse looks  _ beautiful _ . And thus she makes her way south. Her dad is probably on the coast. Sailors usually are, right?

The one night she sleeps on the road, blankets and pillows thrown into the back of the cart, she dreams again.

They are twirling, around and around, and she is dizzy and breathless and happy. The man is smiling, and his gaze is heavy in a way that suggests drink. He opens his mouth to say something, and the darkness meets her opened eyes. She pulls in a deep breath of humid night air. Above her, the sky is bright with stars, and the moon is resting on the horizon.

Finding a tavern in Port Damali is easy. There are lots, and this one even has a nice view of the sea. The people there look a bit rugged, but it’s here that Jester learns the greatest thing ever: card games. People here seem to love to play, and many people want to play with her. So maybe she loses a few coins. She also wins some silver, though!

“Hey, maybe you should leave the lady alone,” a gruff, dark voice sounds from behind her. The sailor in front of her opens his mouth like he’s going to say something rude, but then he looks up and his mouth snaps shut. It looks pretty funny.

The people she played with leave, and the guy who chased them sits down. He’s pretty tall, pretty green, and pretty pretty. Jester still pouts at him.

“I totally had them!” she complains. The half-orc grins back at her.

“They were cheating you out of your money. It was clear all the way across the room,” he tells her, and points over to the table he was sitting at. Jester thinks about how much gold she’s lost tonight, and concedes that he  _ might _ have been right.

She hadn’t even thought about cheating. That must make the game so much easier!

“I’m Fjord,” the guy interrupts her thoughts, and she stills. She can’t take her eyes off him. Everything falls into place, and falls apart at the same time. Fjord.  _ Fjord _ .

“Fjord,” she repeats, and the word is so very familiar on her tongue.

He stares at her expectantly.

“I’m Jester!” she says, after the name’s had time to settle in her head. Reaching a hand out, she greets Fjord. His fingers are surprisingly slim, though there are hard calluses inside his palm.

It doesn’t take them long to decide to go north with him. It will be cool,to see somewhere else than the coast, and her father probably wasn’t here anyway.

\---

That night, Jester has another dream. It starts with a sensation: a hand in hers, gently squeezing. There’s a voice, high-pitched, that she’s never heard before.

And then there’s his voice, again.

“Do you know if it’s achievable?”

Looking around, Jester sees several things. For the first time, there’s another person in her dreams: a green person, who might or might not be a goblin, is staring intently at the man, whose hand Jester’s holding. The man, in turn, is staring into a black thing with metal handles. It doesn’t seem to be a thing of note, other than the weird shape.

Perhaps it can tell you stuff, since he’s asking it questions?

So Jester stares into it, too. Suddenly, she’s not in the room, though she can still feel the weight of a hand in hers. Instead, she is floating in an endless expanse. And before her, not too far away, is the man. He’s looking at a tiny grey mote. 

“Father and mother, I hope I do not let you down,” the man speaks again. He’s reaching for the mote.

“Hey!” Jester says, before he can reach it. He spins around, staring at her with wide eyes. In front of them, many versions of him are going places. And there’s her, too, many of her.

“What are you doing in here, Jester?” he asks. In the distance, Jester can hear the sharp voice of the maybe-goblin.

“I mean, you were staring into the thing, so I thought I would, too,” she explains. The man shakes his head, and his face looks incredulous. As he has in all her dreams, he still has that fond expression though, beneath it all.

“That’s…” Jester can see a little smile appear on his face, and he breathes out a huff of laughter.

He seems to hesitate. Jester floats over to him, and examines the mote. It wants to be touched.

“Touch it together?” she asks, smiling widely at the man. He gives her a slight smile back.

Jester grabs his hand, and they touch it together.

There is a tiny moment, where she feels it enter her chest. Where she hears the goblin saying loud things. Where she feels the man’s hand in two different places at once.

And then she wakes up.

\---

Trostenwald is surprisingly dull. The town is grey and sad, and the food is pretty tasteless. The only thing making it better, is that she’s doing things and exploring places with her new companions. Beau and Fjord are great, and Jester is pretty sure they’ve gotten to the point of being  _ friends _ .

They sit in a tavern, chatting away, before Jester’s whole world falls apart again.

She isn’t asleep. Jester pinches herself, just in case, but knows it wouldn’t matter. She usually feels things, in the dreams. Looking at Fjord and Beau, they seem totally oblivious. Beau is talking about the snake from yesterday. Fjord is just listening to her, while casually seeing if he can get eye-contact with the barmaid. 

The man is walking towards them. Towards her. At his side is a small, cloaked figure, and Jester thinks she might see familiar features, even at this distance.

Then they go and sit at the table beside Jester’s group.

There is no way she can let this go.

“Hi, I’m Jester!” she says, as she leans over. There is a laugh from Beau, a huff from Fjord. The man looks at her, and then at the other two.

There is no look of recognition in his eyes.

\---

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you like it! This work is a bit short, and that's mostly because the story wanted to end where it did. I might write a follow-up with what changes in the main plot, with these tidbits of information that Jester has received. And especially with the different way she will be looking at Caleb!
> 
> I really enjoyed writing this, and I hope you enjoy reading it. Happy Secret Santa!


End file.
